On Tuesday 19 April, our usual lunch at the Kempinski.

I received from President Daniel my Paul Harris pin (PHF+6), always nice it gets to Beijing safely… I have been donating to the Rotary Foundation in the past few years continuously, and I recently became a Paul Harris Society Member.

Our speaker was Ms. Angela Poh; topic: “U.S. — China Strategic Rivalry in Southeast Asia”.

(thanks to Celine for her pics!)

Angela is a PhD candidate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Formerly working at Singaporean DoD, she is currently  on a one-year visiting fellowship at Peking University. Her research is on a Chinese perspective on and employment of economic retaliation.
She gave an overview of the strategic competition between the U.S. and China in Southeast Asia. She suggested that there were increasing security and economic tensions between China and the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region. The chances of miscommunication and miscalculation were high, and countries in the region would need to play constructive roles by incorporating both the U.S. and China into new and existing economic and security institutions in order to delicately manage this strategic rivalry.

Joint Anniversary Celebration with RCBM:
A joint Anniversary Celebration of RC Beijing and RC Beijing Mandarin will be held on Sunday, May 22 at JE Mansion, starting at 6pm. Past RI President Gary Huang will attend the event together with district officers. The ticket is RMB 800 per person (RMB 500 for food and RMB 300 for charity).

Our Tuesday lunch became dinner on 12 April.
Gilbert made his report about Rotaract and presented the banner of his visit to the Rotary Club of Carmel (Indiana).

(thanks to Celine for her pics!)

Speaker was Dr. David Aptsiauri, Ambassador of Georgia, presenting his country.

Georgia is in the Caucasus, a region named after the range of mountains that traces a spectacular diagonal spine from Russia’s Black Sea coast in the northwest, to Baku in the southwest, on the Caspian Sea. This range (higher than the Alps) is considered by many to represent the border between Europe and Asia. Georgia is bordered by Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south and Russia to the north. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 sq Km, and its 2015 population is about 3.75 million. Its favored location has given Georgia a culture partly European, partly Asiatic, but all its own. The climate is diverse, but generally warm and benign. Topography ranges from fertile river valleys to snow-topped peaks and Alpine meadows. Fruit, vines and tea grow in profusion. Georgian wines are a matter of culture.

Georgia also has 500 varieties of grapes and 500 different wines. As it happens, I have at home some wine from Georgia!

Georgians have a story about how their country came to be. God was distributing land among the peoples of the world. The Georgians turned up late and there was no land left. God was annoyed but the Georgians explained that they had been entertaining guests and had got caught up in feasting and thanking God for their blessings with lavish toasts. God was pleased and decide to reward them with the very last spot: “I will give you the land I have been saving for myself.” And so it was that Georgia was born.
This myth holds a lot of truths, as they usually do. It reflects the stunning beauty of the country,and the productive climate.
It also tells of the warmth and hospitality of wine. Georgians still toast, and sing, warmly and without inhibition during their supras.

Georgia is one of the best countries in Europe for investments due to its tax policies. Many companies are looking into moving to Georgia, setting up joint ventures. Georgia has good relations with neighboring countries and China.

Rotarian Eli hosted the auction of Georgian wines donated by the National Wine Agency of Georgia. 13 bottles of wines were all sold and raised RMB 3,950. Together with the happy money, a total of RMB 6,100 was donated to Chunmiao Little Flower.

Special thanks to the Georgian Ambassador Dr. David Aptsiauri and the National Wine Agency of Georgia!

During my stay with my daughter in Carmel, Indiana (near Indianapolis) I finally managed to visit a local club. During my previous stay I couldn’t as all clubs in the region were “on holiday” with Thanksgiving.
Finding the clubs is easy with the Rotary app on the mobile.

My daughter took a day off so she could take me and join the lunch on 1 April.

Always interesting to see how other clubs work and how they can be different.
A pretty large crowd, men and women. Relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Efficient handling of visiting Rotarians with attendance slip that also functions as a badge.
They read the 4-way test, as we sometimes do. Different: a (Christian) prayer and allegiance pledge to America, those would be a definite no-go in our clubs (non religious and we are many nationalities and religions). No “Happy Money” collection. Contrary to our club, I guess few visitors (only me!).
I made a short introduction of our Beijing Club and we exchanged banners.

The presentation was for me very interesting: the speaker gave an overview of the operation of the “Bankers Life Fieldhouse”, the Indianapolis indoor stadium for basketball that houses the Indiana Pacers. Just a few days earlier I visited the impressive stadium for the match Indiana Pacers – Chicago Bulls. As I worked before for the Olympics I could appreciate how much the sports industry is advanced there, certainly compared to China that is decades behind. The whole setup, security, facilities, food and beverage, merchandise outlets, the fan clubs, the atmosphere: whaw. Great stuff. See the figures of what it means in terms of contribution to the economy…

I hope next time to re-visit the club and maybe visit others in the region.

We tried another location for our weekly lunch, this time on 15 March we were in the Westin Hotel.

The speaker was Nevijo Mance, Vice President of Research and Development Projects at BMW Beijing. He presented BMW’s automated driving technology.

When developing automated driving technology, efficiency and low emission remain as long term challenges. Different countries have different emissions standards. In order to fulfill the raising CO2-emissions and fleet targets, significant shares of BEV/PHEV-vehicles are necessary. BMW i3 takes advantage of the benefits of a pure BEV architecture. Laserlight is the latest innovation of BMW Group. It enables excellent visibility of 600 meters, great energy efficiency and is harmless to human eyes. Digitalization is driven by politics, new players and evolving customer requirements. BMW’s latest innovations include Gesture Control and Touch Command. Current advanced driver assistant systems play an important role in protecting people. The new 7 Series already provides functions very close to highly automated driving.

However, true automated driving still means a big step because of a responsibility switch from man to machine, from no system/driver only to driverless vehicles. The Highly Automated Driving Architecture has both on-board and off-board intelligence to enable localization, perception and trajectories planning. Environment models are still very restricted when compared to human perception. Price levels of current high performance lidar sensors are a concern, but cost efficient alternatives are already on the horizon and expected to become mass market compatible. Remaining challenges comprise industrialization as well as technological, social and legal aspects.

(thanks to Celine for the pics and the overview)

It was also Cornelia’s Farewell, we will miss her, she is one of our “old timers” in the club. She will leave Beijing at the end of March. She will look for a new club in Berlin. She thanked the members of Rotary Beijing for a great time and expressed her hopes that she would return in the future.
That is a constant concern in our club: people leaving, because their assignment is at the end or they retire… or they run away because of the pollution…